English · Email Writing
Email to Your Friend About Your Hobby
A model email describing a hobby, with the format and the marks checklist.
Name the hobby in the subject line, then use the body to say what it is, how long you have done it and what you enjoy about it. Because an email is brief, choose one specific example — a particular book, a particular match — and let it carry the paragraph rather than listing everything you do.
The question: Write an email to your friend about your hobby.
The format
Choose one instance, not a survey
In 140 words you can describe one thing you made, cooked, grew or repaired. You cannot describe a hobby in general, and attempting to produces a paragraph of adjectives.
- Pick the most recent or the most difficult instance.
- Name it in the second sentence.
- ⚠️ Resist listing everything the hobby involves.
Say what you did not expect
The most interesting sentence in a hobby email is usually about the part that surprised you — the planning, the failures, the quiet. It is also the part no other script will have.
- One sentence on how it started.
- One on what you did not expect to enjoy.
- A number — attempts, hours, items — makes it real.
Ask what they do
Close with a question rather than a recommendation. An email that ends by telling your friend to take up your hobby has changed into advice.
Model answer
Model answer (about 135 words)
Subject: What I have been doing with my evenings
Dear Nabila,
Good to hear from you. You asked what I do now that the tests are over, and the answer is that I have taken up cooking, which will surprise you as much as it surprised my mother.
It began when she was ill in July and somebody had to make dinner. I started with khichuri, which is difficult to ruin, and I have worked up to a beef bhuna that took four attempts to get right. The part I did not expect to enjoy is the planning — deciding at noon what to buy, and cooking it slowly in the evening while listening to something. Two hours pass and I have not looked at my phone once. Do you cook at all? Tell me what you make.
Take care,
Arefin
What earns and loses marks
- A hobby email needs one concrete example, not a list. A beef bhuna that took four attempts says more than a paragraph on why cooking is a useful skill.
- Write about 120 to 150 words in the body. An email answer of 250 words has usually become a letter with a subject line on top.
- 🚨 Do not add your postal address anywhere. That is the single clearest sign that a letter answer has been reused for an email question.
- Keep the subject line and the first sentence consistent — if the subject says one thing and the message opens on another, the answer looks assembled rather than written.
- Sign with your name only; no designation, no address, no phone number in an informal email.
Frequently Asked Questions
One you can describe in two or three specific sentences, since that is all the space you have. Cooking, gardening, cycling, repairing things and drawing all work well because each produces concrete detail. Abstract hobbies such as “reading” need a named book to become writable.
Yes, and a slightly more natural line often reads better — “What I have been doing with my evenings”. What matters is that it names the topic clearly enough for a reader scanning a list. Cleverness that hides the subject loses the mark.
One clause at most. In a 140-word email a sentence on benefits costs a sentence of description, and the description is where the marks are. Let the detail imply the benefit — “two hours pass and I have not looked at my phone” does the work without stating it.
Keep going
Model answers, formats and grammar rules for every SSC and HSC writing question.